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PRESIDENTIAL WATCH
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(caricatures by
Linda Eddy)
Friday, Oct. 3, 2008
GENERAL NEWS HEADLINES with excerpts
US
House passes
bailout bill...
The 263-171 vote by the House sends the Senate-passed version to the White House for President Bush's signature...
VP
debate
Early results show
viewership 33% higher
than presidential debate
Highest rated debate since 1992
Fred Barnes:
Sarah Palin changed her image overnight
Changing an image overnight is difficult. Ronald Reagan managed it when he debated President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and blew away the widespread notion that he was a warmonger...
Dick Morris:
Palin wins big with Reagan-like flair
LAST night was a big, big win for Sarah Palin.
She showed originality, charisma and sass - a style that is refreshing and different in our politics. She didn't just win the vice-presidential debate, she showed that she belongs with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as among the best communicators of our modern political times.
For his part, Biden sounded like the warmed-over has-been that he is - he seemed to be on downers. Where she was thrilling and exciting, he was hypnotically boring. He seemed like more of the same, while she seemed like a breath of fresh air.
Without trepidation, she tossed aside the Bush years and spoke of the "blunders" in Iraq. She was able to skewer Wall Street and show Republican opposition to the greed there.
... she connected in a way that few politicians do: She speaks for us...
Peggy Noonan:
Biden was no match for 'Joe six-pack'
She killed. She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy...
David Brooks: The Palin rebound
It
took her about 15 seconds to define her persona — the straight-talking
mom from regular America — and it was immediately clear that the night
would be filled with tales of soccer moms, hockey moms, Joe Sixpacks,
main-streeters, “you betchas” and “darn rights.” Somewhere in heaven
Norman Rockwell is smiling.
With a bemused smile and a never-ending flow of words, she laid out her place on the ticket — as the fearless neighbor for the heartland bemused by the idiocies of Washington. Her perpetual smile served as foil to Biden’s senatorial seriousness.
By the end of the debate, most Republicans were not crouching behind the couch, but standing on it. The race has not been transformed, but few could have expected as vibrant and tactically clever a performance as the one Sarah Palin turned in Thursday night.
Democratic
vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared to
incorrectly outline the constitutional role of the job he's seeking in
Thursday's debate.
In attacking Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Biden said the vice president's only role is to support the president and to preside over the Senate "only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit."
The Constitution, though, actually says the vice president is always president of the Senate and legal scholars say he has the right to preside at any time...
Karl Rove states 10 "factually wrong"
Biden debate statements
Politico's Roger Simon:
You betcha Sarah Palin can debate
"Sarah Palin was supposed to fall off the
stage
at her vice presidential debate Thursday evening.
Instead, she ended up dominating it."
National Review: Palin's Triumph
Sarah Palin, once again, confounded her critics with a strong performance. She did it at the Republican convention, and she did it again last night in her debate with Sen. Joe Biden.
She performed with poise and charm.
She effectively made the case that Senator Obama would be naïve in foreign policy and harmful to economic growth, and that Senator McCain would be a common-sense reformer.
She handled questions about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran well.
She connected domestic-policy arguments to the lives of average voters.
Anyone who hoped — or feared — that she
would fall flat on her face was proven wrong.
Dick Morris smackdown of Alan Colmes:
Palin gives Biden pause on Afghanistan
Joe
Biden tried to critique Sarah Palin’s call
for using successful techniques from Iraq and moving them to
Afghanistan, but her response seemed to leave him uncharacteristically
at a loss for words...
Feisty Palin stands her
ground
in Biden debate
Under intense scrutiny, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin stood her ground Thursday night against a vastly more experienced Joe Biden, debating the economy, energy and global warming, then challenging him on Iraq, "especially with your son in the National Guard."
The Alaska governor also noted that Biden had once said Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wasn't ready to be commander in chief, "and I know again that you opposed the move that he made to try to cut off funding for the troops and I respect you for that."
"This debate was about Sarah. And Sarah won."
LA Times: The politics of spunk
She
winked. She wrinkled her nose. She gave a "shout-out" to a third-grade
class.
Never before have American voters met a national politician quite like Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who in her debate debut Thursday night mixed colloquialisms and the manner of a PTA mom while talking about such deadly serious topics as nuclear weapons.
"Ah, say it ain't so, Joe," Palin scolded her debating opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, after he claimed the Republican ticket would merely continue the policies of President Bush. "Now, doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future."
... She committed no major mistakes, and
delivered a livelier and more rhetorically compelling performance than
Biden, 21 years her elder...
Stephanopoulos: VP debate scorecard
My gut tells me there will be a partisan response to this debate with Democrats arguing Biden won, and Republicans reassured by Palin's performance. However there was nothing to this debate that is likely to change the trajectory of the race...
TV pundits: Palin, Biden debate no game-changer
"Conservatives must be breathing a little easier tonight because Sarah Palin passed a test," Donna Brazile said on ABC. "She did her homework. ... Overall, there were no moose in the headlight moments."
"Sarah Palin was threatening to become an embarrassment to the Republican ticket," CNN analyst David Gergen said. "I think she erased that tonight."
When a panel of uncommitted voters gathered by Fox News Channel and pollster Frank Luntz were asked for a show of hands on who won the debate, almost everyone picked Palin.
A click away on CNN, Soledad O'Brien asked another panel whether they had made up their mind as a result of the debate. Ten people raised their hands—one sided with McCain, and nine with Barack Obama.
See also:
AP: Palin exceeded expectations, but was it enough?
RNC shatters monthly fundraising record
The RNC raised nearly $66 million in September, breaking its all-time record.
Committee spokesman Alex Conant credited the haul to the strength of John McCain and Sarah Palin.
The figure is a reminder that, despite her
recent slip-ups, Palin injected an extraordinary boost into the GOP
grass roots.
Vatican official attacks US Democrats as "Party of death"
...now
that the Vatican’s highest court is led by an American, the former St.
Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, we can expect things to get more
explicit in Vatican City — at least when when it comes to U.S.
politics.
Burke, who was named prefect of the Vatican’s Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature in June, told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked “transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues.” He then attacked two of the party’s most high profile Catholics — vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion.
He said Biden and Pelosi, “while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have presented Church doctrine on abortion in a false and tendentious way.”
THE CANDIDATES:
John McCain & Sarah Palin... today's headlines with excerpts
McCain scales back in Michigan
John
McCain's campaign said Thursday that he has scuttled most of his
campaign for Michigan and is shifting people and resources to
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, reshuffling his efforts amid falling poll
numbers.
The politically explosive economic crisis has erased Mr. McCain's lead in key states and in nationwide polls and propelled Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama ahead, squeezing Mr. McCain out of Michigan and making him look elsewhere...
McCain's fate hangs on three states
John McCain now must win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota in order to get enough electoral votes to win the presidency, his campaign says.
... McCain's political director, Mike DuHaime, told reporters on a conference call three hours before debate time that the campaign plans an "aggressive" front in Maine, a solidly Democratic state that gets virtually no attention in presidential races.
The sudden attention to Maine, which is getting some of the staff McCain is moving out of Michigan, reflects what a squeaker McCain expects.
Barack Obama & Joe Biden... today's headlines with excerpts'
Barack Obama is a "decidedly liberal"
senator "who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his
presidential ambitions", according to a frank verdict delivered to
Gordon Brown by the British ambassador to the United States.
... he also judges that his "policies are still evolving" and that if elected he will "have less of a track record than any recent president".
... Mr. Obama "can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons", Sir Nigel wrote, and "does betray a highly educated and upper middle class mindset". Charges of elitism "are not entirely unfair" and he is "maybe aloof, insensitive" at times....
Robert Novak: How will Obama pay for new spending?
... Obama's dividends and capital gains proposals appear to be a major attempt at redistribution of income rather than a serious attempt to pay for the spending that he has proposed.
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